Robert Logie
(University of Aberdeen, U. K.)

Working memory refers to the capacity for retaining information on a temporary basis, and for manipulating, transforming, and reinterpreting that information during the performance of a wide range of everyday tasks. The multiple component model of working memory has been particularly successful in accounting for many aspects of everyday cognition from immediate verbal and visual memory tasks, through acquisition of vocabulary to mental arithmetic, reasoning and creative thinking. It provides not only an understanding of healthy adult cognition, but also offers insight into the cognitive impairments that arise from some forms of focal brain damage, as well as from brain diseases such as Alzheimer's disease. This paper will provide a broad overview of some of these applications of working memory research, and will then report the results of two lines of experimental research that illustrate how the multiple task working memory model has been particularly fruitful in the study of (a) mental imagery in healthy adults and in brain damaged individuals and (b) dual task performance impairments that arise in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease. Results offer insight into (i) some of the processes of mental discovery and creative thinking, (ii) the possibility that perception and mental imagery are rather more distinct than has been assumed hitherto (iii) some of the cognitive difficulties that brain damaged individuals might encounter in daily life with advice for carers, (iv) non-invasive methods for detecting and monitoring the impact of some forms of brain damage, (v) further theoretical development in the area of on-line cognition.